The Roaring 20s!!!
APUSH ch. 23
The 1920s
• Overall themes of the 1920s?
– Social CHANGE!!!
– But also stagnation
• Questions to ask:
– What changed?
– Why/how did it change?
– What were the effects of such change?
– What stayed the same?
Politics
•
In what ways did politics NOT change?
– Harding admin corrupt
• Teapot Dome scandal (Albert Fall)
• Several resignations
• Harding dies, Coolidge takes over, continues policies (Hoover also similar)
– Pro-business policies
• High tariffs
– Fordney-McCumber (1922)
– Hawley-Smoot (1930)
• Lower income/estate taxes for wealthy
• Trickle down economics (Sec of Treasury Andrew Mellon)
• Coolidge does not give aid to struggling farmers (McNary-Haugen Bill vetoed)
– Repeal of Progressive reforms
• Supreme Ct reverses child labor laws (Taft as Chief Justice)
Political Stagnation
• Why not?
– Generally conservative backlash against Progressive reaches, new changing social
attitudes
– “party” mentality of 1920s means people less concerned with reform, more concerned
with leisure
•
Plenty of new goods, distractions to get people’s attention
– Republican Party dominated by conservatives
•
Progressives who left for Bull Moose party in 1912 left only conservatives in party
• Effects?
– Laissez-faire policies help cause Great Depression
Business
•
Business changed dramatically during 1920s
– What aspects of business changed?
• Size/growth
• Organizational structure
• Management techniques
• Advertising
• Labor (and unions)
– Describe how each changed
• Tariffs increased
• Productivity increased 40%
• Assembly line expanded – routines replace skills
• Managers become a distinct business class – oversee larger # of workers
• Advertising becomes big business
• Sell products using promises of social status/advancement
• Anti-union tactics – open shop, etc. effective
– Describe the effects
• GNP grew by 43%
• Stock market soared
• Worker wages increase (but not as much as cost of living at some times)
• Unions suffer setbacks – higher wages = reduced incentive to join
• Agricultural income drops
Technology & Innovation
•
•
•
What changed?
– Cars
– Cities
– Consumer goods
– Environment/energy
– Science & medicine
How did they change?
– Cars more common (3x more popular than pre-war)
– Cities grew – black migration, rural migration
– New consumer goods
• (refrigerator, washing machines, radio, etc)
Describe the effects of change
– American ventured further from home than ever before
– Urban pop. Increases
– Diet changes
– Household chores reduced
– Mass production of music, movies, entertainment
– News faster, more accessible
Entertainment
•
•
What changed?
– Sports
– Music
– Movies
– Literature
– Art
– Celebrities
How/why did they change?
– Baseball, boxing most pop. Sports
– Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Jack Dempsey, et al.
– silent movies more common
– Harlem Renaissance
• Langston Hughes = poet, black experience in US
• Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston
• Ralph Ellison (Invisible Man)
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Sinclair Lewis, other writers reflect or satirize the
attitudes of the 1920s
• Fitzgerald = The Great Gatsby
• Hemingway = The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, The Old Man and the Sea
• Lewis = Main Street, Babbitt
Entertainment
– Radio broadcasts sports and music to new audiences
– Jazz, swing as new music styles
• Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington
• George Gershwin combined classical and jazz (Porgy and Bess, Rhapsody
in Blue)
• Blues = Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller (The Cotton Club)
– Charles Lindbergh
– Artists
• Georgia O’Keefe (painter)
• Edward Hopper (painter)
•
What were the effects?
– Athletes , entertainers as celebrities
– New focus on how celebrities live
– Sports, music grow in popularity with wider distribution
Women’s Roles
•
•
•
What changed for women?
– Social roles
– Economic roles
How did women’s lives change?
– Failure to form a solid voting block
– Cars gave mobility
– Made up a growing
percentage of workforce –
in new clerical roles
– “flappers”
esp.
Describe the effects of this change
– More social freedom
– Setback in feminist thought – younger generation more focused on leisure than
political gains
– Targeted more by ads, consumer goods
Politics
•
•
•
What political issues changed?
– Immigration/nativism
– Racism
– Black social thought
– Religious fundamentalism
– Prohibition
– Isolationism
– Hoover’s policies
How did they change?
– Immigration restricted, nativism increases
– Sacco and Vanzetti
– KKK resurgence (opposing immigrants, Catholics, Jews as well
blacks)
– Back-to-Africa movement – Marcus Garvey
– DuBois & NAACP
– Scopes Trial – can’t teach evolution
– America less involved in world affairs aside from trade
– Hoover ignores econ. Warning signs
– speakeasies
Effects?
– Econ. Speculation leads to depression
– Lack of involvement w/ Europe helps set stage for WWII
– Prohibition creates black market for alcohol –
organized crime
as
increase in